Craft Rambles, Recipes, and Non-Sequiturs

I’m back with a vengeance!

It was a rough spring but my midsommer appears to be a time of change. I moved in with my mother and brother a month ago and a busy month it has been!

Beautiful things to see while sipping tea.

When I moved in, the spare room was a wreck, having been untouched except by mice for a period of years. There were four serious holes in the lathe and plaster walls hat needed patching and paint peeling on almost every surface as well as some damage to the hardwood floors. All this was covered in waist deep clutter and garbage as well as a thick layer of dust. For three weeks I worked every day on clearing and repairing the room meanwhile sleeping on the living room floor. I got some amazing help from my family members, both by blood and by choice. I rather regret not getting some before shots because its hard to relay just how ruined this room was but now I’m sitting at a newly finished desk on a newly painted and refinish room.

The new projects upcoming are mostly outdoor ones. Much like the room, the garden here has been untouched for a years. My mother is a landscaper, but as they say, “The cobbler’s children wear no shoes.” and the landscaper’s garden grows only weeds!

There’s a garden under there?

I’m trying to change that now, and she and I have been putting in regular work to bring back the beauty and production this garden has seen in the past. We’ve planted One bed and have started a second. We are trying to apply permaculture principles as we create the new garden, interspersing aesthetic dahlias with more useful perennials and self-seeding annuals. The first completed bed contains a black dahlia, a lavender dahlia, a mullein, 6 different types of basil, a purple culinary sage, echinacea, and catnip.

Shadow surveys our progress.

While cleaning the yard, We found all kinds of fun things. Some we appreciated simply for their age…

Weathered to monochrome.

Some we appreciated for their beauty…

A forest of amber glass and old tiles.

And some were just a little odd…

This guy was happy to see the sun again.

I injured myself something nasty the other day when I tripped over the dog on a walk and have no choice but to take a break from all my efforts. I’m in a lot of pain and all but something positive has come from it. i am being forced to slow down and look at all I’ve accomplished. So now I get to sit in the half-finished garden with my tea and my breakfast and feel happy with the life I have come into.